This story begins in New York City in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The personal events of the novel are highlighted by such international events as Hitler's rise to power, the Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War, the Stalin regime, the Russian gulags, the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, World War II, and the shock of the Holocaust.

The intellectual setting, which is more important in this novel than the geographical setting, draws upon such social issues as economic exploitation of the worker, global warfare, social injustice, and the violation of human rights, as well as women's issues. Davita's vision, founded on the New York working class neighborhoods of her early childhood, broadens to the rural New England of her aunt and father's childhood, and finally to Russia, Africa, and Europe. The widening of her geographic and political horizons promotes her subsequent social and moral growth. As she shuttles between...